Medications are prescribed to millions of patients to address a wide variety of medical conditions. It is often difficult, however, for physicians to ensure that appropriate dosages of prescribed medications are actually taken by their patients and at the appropriate times. Patients may intentionally or unintentionally fail to take prescribed drugs, or the prescribed drug may be taken by the patient, but with an incorrect dosage level. For many medical conditions, including serious heart conditions such as congestive heart failure (CHF), failure to take the prescribed dosage of the drug in a timely manner can have severe adverse consequences. One approach for monitoring compliance of patient ingestion of medication involves the use of radio frequency identification tags that are typically implanted, either by being ingested or inserted under the skin. Such devices tend to be cost prohibitive since they require a great deal of development to ensure against damage, either of the device or to the patient resulting from the ingestion of the device by the patient. Therefore, what is needed is a method and apparatus for automatically monitoring prescription drug intake to enable a physician to determine whether a patient has taken their medication, whether the medication has been taken at the proper dosage and/or at the proper time of day, or whether the patient has only taken prescribed medication sporadically.